Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here

by Anna Breslaw

I knew this book would be odd based on the description, and I hoped it would be funny based on the blurbs. Well, it was odd, but I can't say I laughed once while reading it.

SCARLETT is full of pop culture references and immersed in the online world of fanfiction. Looking back at the description, I shouldn't have been surprised to find a book within a book here. A major part of this book (like entire chapters, not like FANGIRL'S page at the beginning of chapters) is Scarlett's fanfiction story about teenage sexbots who are sent to a private school in order to learn how to be more human. The fanfic is meant to loosely parallel characters and elements from Scarlett's real life, but honestly, it was just so bizarre and--I'm guessing intentionally--read like bad fan fiction. The sad part is that the fanfiction story is the only real plot in the book.

Scarlett's IRL (in real life) story is a slow, meandering nothing. She goes from person to person, recounting how them met and disappointed her (in most cases) while making pithy observations and jokes that fell completely flat and/or were in pretty bad taste. The story picks up a tiny bit towards the end, but not enough to salvage the book for me.